


going through the motions

by queenofglass



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-18
Updated: 2012-04-18
Packaged: 2017-11-03 20:48:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/385786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenofglass/pseuds/queenofglass
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At the Potters' funeral, Remus reflects on love, loss, and sacrifice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	going through the motions

_“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me . . . ”_

Remus heard the words, but they meant nothing, nor offered him comfort. His hands were fists in his pockets and slowly freezing in the snowfall. He often felt like this before a full moon—clinging desperately to the past and fearing the future. He used to say that the war was the most terrifying thing he had ever witnessed, but not anymore. The aftermath of it—chaos, violence, loss—was the most terrifying thing of all.

The minister droned on, and Remus hated it. He hated him; the man didn’t know James and Lily. He didn’t know that Lily took two sugars in her tea and that James slept with a teddy bear until he was ten years old.

Remus hated everything about today. He did not want to bid another friend farewell, much less two, and he did not want to go home and know that today would end and tomorrow would be much worse.

 _I’m sick of funerals_ , he thought bitterly. _Sick of burying friends_.

Most of the Order was here, along with a large quarter of the Wizarding world. Peter’s funeral was attended by many, as befit his brave end, but James and Lily Potter, murdered trying to save their child—the same child who somehow defeated the Dark Lord—would be honored forever. There were tears and bent heads but Remus was consumed with horrible, unending anger. He felt old in his bones at twenty-one, and that the real tragedy was that Harry Potter would never know what special people his parents were.

Remus decided against giving the eulogy, knowing that he would never get the words out. He watched, numb, as Albus Dumbledore stepped before the coffins. Fresh flowers appeared on each of them in his wake—white lilies. A symbol of souls departed. Remus swallowed hard. “There is nothing,” Dumbledore began, adjusting his glasses, “more important in this world than love.”

It was if a knife was shoved between his ribs. Love was important, yes, but Remus loved them too much. He loved his friends so _much_ , so _deeply_ , that he almost never told them so, for fear of driving them away. He spent so much of his life hating himself, and selfishly, hated that those who loved him were ripped from the world.

People were rising all around him; he blinked. _That was it?_ That was all they had to honor his friends, all they said about their lives, so cruelly cut short? What about how James took him in as brother? How Lily always had a kind word and a smile for anyone who needed them? What of Harry, who will spend a decade ignorant of his parent’s legacy, of their sacrifice?

Remus, unmoving in his grief, barely noticed being lifted from the chair. He watched the headstone grow smaller over Hagrid’s shoulders, and started to struggle.

“No, no, no, wait, we can’t leave yet—”

“S’ time, Remus,” Hagrid grunted, but his eyes were shining with tears. “Time to go.”

“No, we can’t let them go in the ground, they don’t belong there, _please_ let me go!”

“S-S’ over—”

Remus wanted to weep, to howl, to scream with rage. He wanted to tear his hair, pound his fists, jump into the grave with them. He didn’t want his heart beating when their hearts weren’t. He wanted to go back to Hogwarts and sit by the lake with his friends and be ignorant of times to come. He wanted James, Lily, Peter, Sirius, he wanted them all _back_. But James was dead, Lily and Peter too. Sirius killed them all. His best friend and packmate did this, he did this to all of them.

Hagrid let go, his huge frame shaking with sobs. Remus wasn’t sure if he had said all of those thoughts aloud, but he didn’t want to be near the man when tears started falling.

The presider of the funeral had his wand raised, preparing to place the coffins below the headstone. If he objected to Remus standing there, he didn’t mention it. Heartbroken, Remus watched the dirt cover his friends for good, settling with a certain finality. His knees touched the ground, his hands shook, snowflakes melted in his hair. Time was passing no matter how hard he resisted it.

“Remus.”

His throat felt tight. “Sir.”

“You are a member of the Order, Remus,” Dumbledore said kindly. “Albus is quite enough.”

“Albus, then,” he gulped, staring at the shabby patches on his pants. “Is there something . . . something I can do for you?”

“You can start with standing up,” said Dumbledore firmly. “Stand up, Remus. Accompany Hagrid and I to headquarters. There’s a dinner being prepared now.”

Remus stood, his knees trembling. “Sir, I c-can’t—”

“You can, and you will. They would not want you to mourn their deaths, but celebrate their lives—”

“They left me,” Remus said angrily, wiping tears away before they froze on his face. “They all did. I don’t _want_ to celebrate their lives, I want them _back_.”

“They aren’t coming back, Remus. Grief is a natural part of life. You will go with Hagrid.”

Remus stalked off furiously. He didn’t want to be treated like a child, but admittedly, he was acting like one. Funerals were quite common in the Lupin family; they were a fragile stock. He had been to four before the age of nine.

Hagrid was waiting in the street, mopping his eyes with his tie. He was mid-conversation with what looked to be a _Prophet_ reporter. Remus pushed the kissing gate open and flipped his collar against the wind. To the right, a blonde woman was peering through the bars of the graveyard. At his approach, she regarded him warily.

“Did I miss it?”

“Yeah,” he said automatically, though his eyes were tracing her face. She looked familiar somehow . . . something in the nose, perhaps. “Did you know them?”

The woman had taken to staring at the graveyard again. “What?”

“Did you know them?” he repeated. “James and Lily?”

To his amazement, her eyes misted over. It vanished so fast he thought he must have imagined it, for her expression hardened immediately.

“Once,” she said shortly. With one final glance at the grave, she arranged her scarf in an orderly way and hurried off. Remus stared after her, knowing her but also not, before he went over to meet Hagrid.

“I’m sorry about before,” he said quietly. “I was upset.”

“S’ no problem, Remus,” said the gamekeeper heavily. “We are were. _Are_.”

Later, Remus ate the food he was given, sat where directed, even smiled at jokes that weren’t funny. _Going through the motions_ , as Muggles would call it.

He supposed the Muggles had it right. It didn’t make the pain any easier to deal with, but a light had appeared at the end of the tunnel. His scars would heal, the world would right itself, and Harry would know the truth: that his parents died so he may live, that their love saved them all. It was love that was keeping him together when he felt like falling apart, love that made him soldier on, as James and Lily would have done.

Dumbledore was right in the end; love was the most important thing.


End file.
